Children in Detention

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The Australian Greens have welcomed the dismissal of the Northern Territory's Corrections Minister and the decision to establish a Royal Commission in response to the Four Corners report into abuse in youth detention facilities.

"This Royal Commission needs wide terms of reference to determine the full extent of abuse both in the Northern Territory and elsewhere," said Greens Leader Senator Richard Di Natale.

The Australian Greens have congratulated doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals for taking a strong stand against children in detention today.

"I left medicine to go into politics for the exact same reason that these health workers are making a stand today: we've got to fix the factors that make people sick. By locking up innocent people, denying them decent medical care and stripping them of all hope we are actively creating harm," said Greens Leader Dr Richard Di Natale.

The Australian Greens are calling on Labor to end the detention of children after six youths were taken to hospital following a fight between a group of teenagers at Pontville Detention Centre in Tasmania.

Australian Greens Leader Senator Christine Milne said this was the second incident in less than a month and was ample evidence that children needed to be put into families in the community.

"Keeping children in detention is shocking," Senator Christine Milne said.

The Australian Greens have launched a ‘Books of Hope’ drive today, calling for people all around the country to donate children’s books for refugee families in Manus Island and other detention centres.

A young mother named Ranjini who is facing indefinite detention in Australia has given birth to her third child; another innocent new-born who will be detained despite having committed no crime.

“What should be a joyous time for Ranjini and her family is no doubt tinged with despair as she knows her children face unreasonable and lengthy detention,” the Greens immigration spokesperson, Senator Sarah Hanson-Young said.

The huge cost of the Gillard Government’s offshore detention policy, which remains a mystery because of the deliberate obfuscation of the total expense, hasn’t been solved in today’s MYEFO announcement according to the Australian Greens.

The Australian Greens will today give notice they will introduce a bill to amend the ASIO Act, thereby restoring basic procedural fairness to refugees who are detained indefinitely because of the agency's powers.

"We're taking this action in the Senate because regardless of the decision of the High Court challenge which gets underway today, the law will have to be changed," Greens' immigration spokesperson, Sen. Sarah Hanson-Young, said.